So it ain't all bad.

There has been one really thrilling part of being a college graduate (besides getting to share an apartment with Tim, which I really cannot get enough of). I have had the BEST time picking out my own books over the past few months.

Don't get me wrong. Working in the bookstore was always a challenge for me because Centenary's professors (or most professors, really), in general, have great taste in books. It's part of the turf of being a professor, I believe. So the bookstore was a mixed blessing because I always ended up coming home with at least four books that weren't on my required reading list--it didn't hurt (or help?) that I had a ten percent discount and my pick of the best used copies of everything.

Anyway, since moving I miss the bookstore horribly, and I've replaced it with something worse--which is to say, a Borders Rewards card and a full-time job with a salary. I've developed another "problem" to go along with my "t-shirt problem" and my "pen problem" and my "cd problem" and my "wii problem" and my "food-in-general problem." Did I forget to mention my meatball problem?

For better or worse, this is the stack of books I've amassed to read. Piled up like this, they actually look less intimidating to me than they should, especially considering that I'm spending more money now "per semester" on books than I was in college.

And even though I feel like I blaze through them, this ---> is the pile of books that I've read since I graduated! Not nearly as towering as I'd hoped, but still beautiful if for no other reason than that I read every single one of these by my own free will. (Also, I think it's shorter than I thought because between the two members of this household we have subscriptions to--in no particular order--Rollingstone, Foreign Affairs, The Sun, Domino, Time, Ready Made, Smithsonian, and Lucky magazines--as well as The Washington Post. [In my defense, Lucky and Domino were free {God, I'm a horrible environmentalist}].)

All through college I complained that I never had enough time for art, for just futzing around, listening to music... And I STILL don't futz around nearly enough, mostly because I want to rip through that stack of books like an angry bull with a speed addiction and its reading glasses on.

As a psychological trick to make me feel less guilty about that, I think I'm going to start writing short book reviews on the Blog. And more recipes too. If you want to read them (the books OR the reviews), awesome. If not, you can just look at the covers. Whatev. For now, these books are the highlight of that second pile.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
by Jonathan Safran Foer.
I had the luxury of reading this book in one sitting, from the Dublin airport all the way back to the states. Even if you don't have that kind of time on your hands, this is almost certainly one of those marathon books that will leave you mesmerized and glued to your chair. The words "post-9-11" trigger my gag reflex a little bit, but this book's characters are engaged with tragedy in a timeless, sensitive, glittering, and wholly original way. If this book had a face, it would have a wan smile and a self-reserved, defiant twinkle behind it's long eyelashes. Just FYI--I'm betting that none of my book reviews will tell you the slightest bit of what a book is actually about--that's largely because I (a) don't like to know what books are about before I read them and (b) can't remember what they're about as much as how they make me feel. So that's that.

Eiger Dreams
by Jon Krakauer
If you're a fan of Krakauer's other books (which are all incredibly gripping as well as enlightening), it's good to know that these are short stories before you dive in, hoping for another novel-length work. Krakauer primarily writes short pieces for magazines and other publications and these are some of his best from before 1990. If you're even remotely interested in mountaineering, rock climbing, or people doing utterly insane things for fun and self-flagellation, you'll enjoy this. Compared to his other books, it's simply not as engrossing, but as a stand alone, the stories offer a particularly great read for people who have short attention spans and need a lot of excitement. (nb: this book talks about Boulder, where I was born, and about pilots in Petersburg, Alaska, where my best friend (whose father was a pilot) was born--so I found it exciting just for that.)

Fight Club
by Chuck Palahniuk
This book is disgusting and delicious like a giant, violent, molten chocolate cake. It is decadent in the true sense of the word. I waited six long years to read this book and finally read it in one long sitting. Be careful. You might chip a tooth.



His Dark Materials trilogy
The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass
by Philip Pullman
It's true, I never would have picked this up if the movie hadn't come out. I don't follow the children's fantasy scene very closely, if you know what I mean. But it was on sale and I had read somewhere that Pullman's series had a more positive treatment not only of women but of the whole good-versus-evil thing than the Chronicles of Narnia. I LOVED the Chronicles, but I really don't dig the black and white, cut and dry, good and evil thing so I carried this 929-page brick around with me for a month. The verdict? It was incredible. It was both more violent and more gentle than I expected it to be, somehow. I'm glad I read it. If children's fantasy doesn't make you cringe, I highly recommend these books.

Ja.

I'm OK, sort of...

I think I've scared just about everybody who knows me, who has ever met me, who is related to anyone who knows me, who knows someone who has ever met me at a party/family barbeque/crawfish boil. Basically, if you and I are related by six degrees or less, you probably heard that I had a "serious" illness and was getting blood tests to see what was wrong with me. I also haven't told anyone except Tim about the results because I truly hate talking about it. I feel absolutely disgusting and I feel absolutely disgusting trying to describe my symptoms. As it turns out, using the most vague and euphemistic terms only prompts people to pry further. I know it's because they care, but the last thing you need when your insides are grossing out is to be grossed out by every social conversation you have.

To kill the suspense, I'm fine. No virus, no bacterial infection, no third world parasite eating its way through my small intestine (that I know of). Which is great, except that you must then consider why I did get sick. Without a physical reason, one must turn to a host of psychological factors that cause, or at least amplify, a bodily illness as severe and unpleasant as I faced. Certainly, I have not adjusted to life here , whether it be the unchallenging 40-hour a week job, a miserable climate, a crowded big city, or being so far from friends and family. It's scary to think that my ball of stress, the ache in the pit of my stomach that I constantly feel, is so physically potent to knock me out of work for a week. In comparison, an Indian überbug that a doctor can treat sounds like a dream.

(This entire passage is written by Tim, and is--in his words--a "summary of the things that have been dictated to him over the past two weeks." I think his offer to write my blog entry came partly from the overwhelming number of people who have asked me to update, and partly because he understands my sincere and extreme desire not to talk about this sickness anymore. The long and short of it is, I have been ill for a number of weeks and all of it culminated in me becoming EXTREMELY sick for a few scary days. No, I won't tell you the details [as much as you know I usually LOVE to give all the bloody plot-twists]. No, I don't really feel better. No, I don't know what's wrong with me. I suspect it has a lot to do with all of the things that Tim so carefully tried to express in my voice in the passage above.

Thank you everyone who has been concerned. Honestly I think it's the fact that I have to tell everyone I love about these things over the phone, or through e-mail instead of face-to-face that's just making me a little crazy and heart sick. I can't wait to get out of this stupid city.)